As I hugged a dear friend at her mother’s funeral, with tears in her eyes she said to me, “I wish you could have known her.”

Oh, but I do know her!

I know her because I know the woman she raised. The one who passionately lives life, who gives without wanting to receive, the one who is determined and the one who parents like a pro.

I know what a great woman she was because of the great woman she produced.

And now it’s up to you, like any of us who have had a loved one die, to keep a loved one’s character alive for future generations by reflecting, sharing and exhibiting the great qualities of her/his life.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

“Yes, many of us have lost loved ones to cancer. And when we ourselves have it, those deaths are a flash of our own mortality from the disease. My first grandchild was born yesterday. Will I see her grow up to experience life? I have decided that my path through cancer has helped me to appreciate each and every moment that I have. As I hold her and help my daughter through these first days I know that no matter how long my journey turns out to be I will enjoy each day and stay in the moment.”
– Elizabeth –

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Life Thief
Cancer illness
mourning, grief
funeral hearse
life thief
grave site
burial, rain
children, tears
agony, pain
goodbye mother
mourning, grief
damn cancer,
life thief
-Angela Barker –

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

One year I called on a woman on my child’s soccer team who had buried her mother who died of cancer the month before. I didn’t really know her that well and felt a little awkward dropping by so early on a Sunday as I was heading out for my daily walk in nature. But because I reached out to her that difficult day and invited her to join me on a trek, we became friends for life. I had walked over and wished her happy Mother’s Day, telling her that from what I had seen out at the soccer field and at the school, I thought she was an incredible mother to her children. It seemed to matter.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Robin was four years old when her mother died. At the funeral, she was calm and strong—a little mother herself, helping her grieving father and older siblings. People commented on how well she was doing. She continued to do well for some years after that.

And when she turned twelve, her dog died.

Something inside broke.

The wall came down. The dam overflowed.

She knew as clear as a piece of broken glass that her mother was not coming back—ever!

She would have a whole year of twelve, and thirteen, and fourteen, without her mother.

She would have to go through high school, become a woman, experience her first love, learn to drive, get married, have children of her own—all without her mother.

Her whole long life ahead of her looked too heavy to manage.

“After my mother died,” she said, “I didn’t see any sense in life. I didn’t see how I could go on. I tried so very hard to cope and forget…but Bailey’s death opened up a world I thought I had buried. Oh, I miss my mamma so much!”

I am here to tell you I have seen the power of love start to heal deep wounds. I held that child in my arms for more than an hour as she grieved the death of her mother. It didn’t matter that her mother had passed away 8 years earlier!

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Mother’s Day isn’t only for those of us whose heart is aching as we remember the last moments spent with our mothers.

You can feel pain on Mother’s Day for various reasons:

—If you’ve lost your mother and you’re facing the first Mother’s Day without her

—If you’ve lost children and feel the void especially on that day

—If you have a child who won’t live until the next Mother’s Day

—If you’ve never been able to conceive or carry a child successfully

—If you’ve miscarried (and have children)

—If your child or mother is away fighting in war

—If you gave up a child for adoption

—If you are a motherless daughter

—If your child or mother committed suicide

—If your child or mother died of an accidental drug overdose

—If your mother or child died due to illness

—If you are a woman with children and your partner has recently left you

—If you are the husband who is doing his best to parent your children and usher them through the grief of losing their mom in an accident (or any other way)

—If you are saying a slow good-bye to your mother who has Alzheimer’s disease

—If your loved one was cremated and there is no gravestone (maybe someone else made that decision)

…

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Have you ever tried sitting motionless for 15 or 20 minutes in order to feel calmer, more peaceful and free of tension? The following exercise will allow you to breathe in calmness and breathe out tension…

Close your eyes.

Think of yourself as a vessel holding muddy water—the longer you sit still the more sediment can settle at the bottom so you can see the clear water.

As you sit in the present moment you may notice your mind going through a series of events like pictures passing through a projector—thoughts of the past or imaginings of the future.

Take three deep breaths.

Then breathe normally allowing your breath to flow in and out freely.

Notice the feeling of your breath going in and out of your nostrils.

Notice the pause between your inhalation and exhalation.

And notice the pause between your exhalation and inhalation.

As you focus your attention on the breath, ignore any thought, memory, sound, smell, taste, and focus your attention exclusively on the breath, nothing else.

Notice how your breaths become longer as you relax and focus on the breath.

Your mind and body are becoming calmer.

If your mind tries to wander…and you find yourself remembering people and places and books and food and the laundry and the bills and your “to do” list and your vacation…return your focus to your breath.

To increase your concentration, count silently to yourself—While breathing in count “one, one, one, one…” until the lungs are full of fresh air. While breathing out count “two, two, two, two…” until the lings are empty of fresh air. Then while breathing in again count “three, three, three, three…” until the lungs are full again and while breathing out count again “four, four, four, four…” until the lungs are empty of fresh air. Count up to ten and repeat as many times as necessary to keep the mind focused on the breath.

Once your mind is focused on the breath, give up counting.

After inhaling do not wait to notice the brief pause before exhaling but connect the inhaling and exhaling, so you can notice both inhaling and exhaling as one continuous breath.

A child learning to use scissors concentrates on the dotted line where he wants to cut. He needs to become familiar with the weight and size of the scissors and his ability to manipulate the tool. But his main focus of attention is on that dotted line! It’s the same for you when you are learning the art of breathing to free your mind. You need to keep your mind straight on the point where you feel the air moving in and out of your nostrils.

As you practice, you may feel your body getting lighter as if you could float. And as your concentration deepens your breath becomes subtle as you have less awareness of it.

Happy practicing and may peace be yours along with the wisdom to handle your daily problems.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

For five minutes at the beginning of your day, allow your feelings to be present.

Don’t try to direct them, enhance them, or manipulate them.

Just notice them.

Just feel them.

Being creatures of both the mind and body experience, we’ll frequently notice that feelings get expressed as sensation in the body.

Watch the sensations, and try not to judge them good or bad (at least for the duration of this exercise).

In the mind, fear thoughts may arise to create resistance, and judging thoughts may attempt to distract us from the experience.

Repeat to yourself:

“My mind is open, and my body is soft; I am willing to trust life now. I am willing to feel life now.”

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Your life energy is yours to spend in whichever way you choose. You are free to make choices.

Even within grief you are free to make choices:

“Today will I direct my energy and thoughts to those still alive or will I spend my time absorbed in my own thoughts and feelings about my beloved who died?”

“Today will I express my needs, or will I keep them to myself?”

“Today will I give thanks and express gratitude, or will I choose to not see my blessings?”

“Today will I look at the pretty spring flowers pushing their way out of the soil or will I stare right through them and not see them because I am thinking about something else?”

…

Will you choose to spend your day saying, “I can’t” or “I need to” or “I have to” and not realize that many times those are actually choices?

Sometimes you don’t have choices when events happen. When my sister Cindy disappeared unexpectedly and died mysteriously, I couldn’t control it. It had happened. I couldn’t change that fact as much as I would have wished to!

But I did have some choices as to the way I responded to what happened. When she disappeared I could have tried to arrange for time off work and gone to Vancouver to look for her—but I chose not to. Instead I waited, and I hoped, and I wondered if she was in hiding from her tormentor. And when her body was found I could have immediately flown to Vancouver to be with my family of origin but instead I held off for a day so that I could gather strength…I missed out on family time but I gained something else.

There are consequences to our choosing not to do something just as there are consequences for our choices to do something!

Are you operating from a position of being a victim of your circumstances?

Have you given up your energy, your passion and your power?

Are you taking the responsibility for your choices?

Do you have to do something or are you choosing to do it?

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Between our first inhale at birth and our last exhale at death, some part of us is always dying…

When I was a child and Dad’s military career took most of my immediate family (excluding my oldest brother and sister, Cindy) from Canada to Europe, a world died. (Those who leave their native land to take up a new life in a new country know about this.) The same thing happened when we relocated to a new city or from one part of town to another (whether within Europe or later when we returned to Canada)—a lot of the people we had seen every day, we never saw again, as surely as if they were dead.

And when I graduated from school and left home and later changed jobs and careers and moved and married and had children and did things I would rather not have…well, those changes were all wrapped up in deaths AND revivals—part of my past died each time, but each time I gained something (even if I didn’t “see” or understand the positive at the time).

It was the same when my sister died—I questioned my religious and philosophical views and revised them. And when I experienced the inquest into her death and the related meetings with members of the law enforcement, judicial and medical systems, my political and societal convictions changed. And when I felt “alone”, even within my family relationships, thinking nobody could possibly understand what I was feeling and I thought the feeling of loss would NEVER go away…as hard as it was, I looked inward. And I grew. And it got “better” eventually. And I even learned to have fun and smile and laugh again.

When loves ends, whether it’s your first mad romance of adolescence, the love that will not sustain a marriage and leads to divorce, or the love of a failed friendship, it is the same—a death.

Likewise in the event of a miscarriage or an abortion: a possibility is dead. And there is no public or even private funeral. Sometimes only regret and nostalgia mark the passage. And the last rites are held in the solitude of one’s most secret self—a service of mourning in the recesses of the soul.

If you have experienced a loss (and who of us hasn’t?), ask yourself if you are “stuck” in the loss thinking, “I’ll simply feel this way forever.” Have you lost confidence in your resiliency? Remember, life is about choices.

We all need to be able to separate and still feel whole and satisfied with ourselves and with those people and events and things from whom we part.

If time has passed and you constantly focus on the thing/person/event you’ve lost, you’ll never be able to see or appreciate the people or the things or the events that are still with you that can enrich your life now if you leave yourself open to them.

I know this must be difficult for you.

But for the moment, here, now, and again tomorrow and the next day, I ask you to consider opening your eyes and seeing what is before you.

Your loss is not a personal assault against you!

Embrace what you have.

Go ahead…try it!

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James